I am a writer, lecturer and workshop facilitator from Manchester. I live in Lancaster, where I lecture in Creative Writing at Lancaster University, teaching undergrad and postgrad modules in the short story, as well as supervising PhDs in creative writing.

I supervised Naji Bakhti and his novel Between Beirut and the Moon. He is now a lecturer at Aberystwyth University. I also supervised Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai and her novel, Dust Child, which is published internationally, ‘has received critical acclaim and has been voted as a best book of the year/month/season by many media establishments. 

I am currently working in the area of personal essays and memoir. My nearly-finished memoir, Her Voice When She Loves Me, sits at the intersection of memoirs about grief and care as well as leaving cults and high control religion. Exploring the relationship with my mother, who died in 2020, after twenty years of multiple sclerosis, this book attempts to process the impact of these experiences, not forgetting that despite everything, my mother was a very funny woman.

I’ve adapted my memoir into a 50 minute solo show, A Maternal Exorcism, which I have performed at the International Cultic Studies Conference 2025 in Montreal and at the Bay Fringe Festival 2025 in Morecambe. The next performance will be on October 18th at the Litfest Autumn Weekender.

In the last few years, though I’ve continued to publish a number of short stories that explore care and care-giving. But it’s been more than a few years since I’ve published my full-length book. In March of 2021, I woke up one day and realised how much the religious upbringing I thought I’d put behind me was still impacting me every day. The long term insomnia and chronic anxiety, the alcohol dependency and the fatigue and physical symptoms that would later become Hoshimotos – an autoimmune condition that causes an underactive thyroid. Alongside this, how I operated in the world, how I reacted to feedback, how I carried shame and trauma in my body, how I felt I was never enough. How I kept giving up on books I’d nearly finished. The story that lies behind this has become my memoir and solo show.

On pause is a speculative novel, The New Humans, developed from my short story in Comma Press’ Beta-Life anthology.

My collection of short stories, The War Tour, (often misheard as The Wall Tour) was published in 2012 by Comma Press, and was shortlisted for the Edge Hill Prize for short stories. One of the stories from that collection appeared in the Independent on Sunday. I am represented by Sam Copeland at Rogers, Coleridge and White. 

I specialise in running writing for wellbeing workshops, developing methods to foster wellbeing in others through in person and online workshops. My main focus is in developing new ways of developing these for survivors of religious trauma, but I also facilitate them for other groups and demographics.

I am an experienced host for literary events, interviews and book launches. Regularly hosting events for Lancaster Litfest as well as other organisations.

Photo by Ana Rebolledo @anita.burr